Vegas: Tools for the Trade

As Las Vegas evolves as a destination, so does the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) as a resource for travel agents. While the Vegas Certified specialist program has gone the way of the 99-cent breakfast, the LVCVA has beefed up its assistance to the trade in other ways.

Not least among them is a redesigned website with a plethora of information and tools designed to keep you updated on what’s happening there and help you sell the destination. The redesign has taken place gradually over the past 18 months and is now more interactive and easier to navigate, according to Art Jimenez, the LVCVA’s senior director of leisure sales. Moreover, the “travel professionals” tab is the first link on the home page, he says. (It’s located on the upper-left side.)

While the new site offers a consumer-only booking tool, it kept “Commissionable Vegas,” which lists hotels, shows, attractions and activities that pay commission or offer net rates to agents, as well as the contact information for booking them. For example, you’ll find that “Blue Man Group” at the Monte Carlo Resort & Casino pays 10 percent commission for bookings of groups of 10 or more people. And the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art offers a net rate.

You can also use the site to compare hotels, view featured lodging deals and sign up for a newsletter, which offers updates on hotels, restaurants, entertainment and attractions.

Cool Tools

Among the sales and marketing tools offered by the site are an interactive map, where you can select a region and preferences, such as “casino,” “specialty dining” and “sports and recreation,” and receive a map and a list of suppliers with contact information based on those preferences. Other tools include customizable newsletter templates; downloadable photos; a brochure request form; information on clothing, climate, suggested gratuities, and getting to Las Vegas; and options for visitors under age 21 and special-needs guests.

The LVCVA also fine-tuned the group booking request-form, allowing you to determine what hotels you want to receive your group requests. Previously, this tool, which was known as the “Electronic RFP,” sent your RFP to all hotels, and you “would receive information from Bellagio to the Best Western,” Jimenez says. “Now, you have the ability to choose up to 10 hotels.”

The site even has a “How to Vegas” section, where you’ll find information on specialty travel (such as “Gay Vegas”) and offbeat travel (such as “Vegas on the Edge,” which features information on roller coasters and other thrill rides, attractions like Shark Reef Aquarium, and even the eight-pound burger challenge at the Pub at Monte Carlo Resort).

Incentives

In addition, the LVCVA offers incentive promotions that are exclusive to travel agents. Offering promotional codes to the trade, the LVCVA launches an incentive for a specific period of time. If you book travel using the code during that program, you will receive a reward. For example, under a “caffeine promotion” last year, any agent who filled out a group request-form received a $10 Starbucks gift card. At press time, the LVCVA was developing its fall incentive promotions.

The LVCVA will also work with hotels. “If the Mirage wanted to do something, we’d develop a promotional code for them,” Jimenez says. The LVCVA would then send an email to agents with a link and the promotional code for booking.

The biggest incentive, however, is the Cash In On Vegas program, which awards agents who have booked vacations there by giving out a total of $5,000 a month in gift cards in random drawings. Until recently, the program also awarded one agent with a Las Vegas getaway. The LVCVA has revamped this program, doing away with the trips but still rewarding agents with $5,000 per month. In addition, agents earn 100 points for every room night booked and can redeem those points online at any time for amenities like Las Vegas dining, shows, tours and promotional items, such as a suitcase and official light bulbs from the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign.

You can submit eligible bookings online at www.trackmylasvegasbookings.com.

Selling Points

There are plenty of selling points, with new developments picking up the pace as the once-sluggish economy gradually recovers. On the immediate horizon are several hotel renovations, including the SLS Las Vegas, formerly the Sahara Hotel & Casino, which “will rejuvenate the north end of the Strip” when it opens early next year, according to Jimenez. Another is the Resorts World Las Vegas hotel and entertainment complex, formerly the Echelon, which had ceased construction during the recession. (See hotel development story, page *XX.)

In addition, several Strip-side dining and entertainment districts are under development, with the first, The Linq, set to open later this year featuring a giant observation wheel as its centerpiece.

The Strip isn’t the only part of Las Vegas that’s evolving. A transformation of the convention center and the area around it, dubbed the Las Vegas Global Business District, is underway. The development, which has a projected cost of $2.5 billion, is being completed in phases over 10 years. The first phase, which is taking place over the next two years, includes programming and design, budget development, improvements to the existing space at the convention center, and land acquisition.

Additional phases will include expanding the convention center (the first major expansion of the 54-year-old facility in more than a decade), upgrading technology and adding outdoor public spaces, among other improvements.

The development also will leverage and expand the World Trade Center designation given to the convention center in 2011 by developing a dedicated World Trade Center facility. And it will create a centralized transportation hub designed to improve connectivity in the resort corridor, as Las Vegas projects to host approximately 44 million annual visitors and as many as 7 million convention delegates over the next 10 years, according to the LVCVA.

Downtown Las Vegas also has seen a renaissance, with renovated hotels and new restaurants, retail and attractions. In particular, hotels like the Union Plaza and Fitzgerald’s have undergone major renovations, re-emerging as The Plaza and The D Las Vegas, respectively. The Downtown Grand Las Vegas Hotel & Casino opened late last year after completing the $100 million renovation from the prior property, the Lady Luck.

Altitude Adjustments

Among the most recently opened downtown attractions is "SlotZilla," the world's first power-launch zip-line attraction, propelling riders 1,700 feet along the Fremont Street Experience 100 feet off the ground. Other recently opened downtown attractions include the Neon Museum, featuring iconic Las Vegas neon signs; the Mob Museum, with interactive exhibits highlighting Las Vegas’ organized crime days and the federal crack-down on mobs; and the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, which features Broadway-style musicals, as well as other theatrical and musical performances.

At McCarran International Airport, the $2.4 billion, 1.9 million-square-foot Terminal 3 (T3) expansion debuted last year, increasing McCarran’s annual capacity to approximately 53 million passengers. Among T3’s amenities are technological enhancements and more than a dozen stores and restaurants, as well as slot machines. In 2012 McCarran, the seventh-busiest airport in the U.S., handled about 40 million passengers.

You’ll find information on all of the destination’s developments, as well as updates, on the new website, which markets the Strip and beyond. “We want to promote all of our products,” Jimenez says. “Las Vegas doesn’t stand still very long.”

Editor's Note: A version of this article appeared in the February 2014 issue of Vacation Agent magazine.

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